I'm rather glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks their sound stage borders on "ridiculously good". Deep down, I'm a speaker guy, not a headphone person, and headphones have always been an "inside my head" experience, quite regardless of price. At some time during casual listening, I had to check that I hadn't accidentally activated my monitors, because there was a sound stage in front of me - it's something that not even Staxes have been able to do for me.

I'm definitely impressed with these little earpods. Well, maybe not super impressed, as this is what headphones that ship with iPhones/MP3 players SHOULD should like. These are good enough for most casual listeners to be fairly happy. I am more of a Beyer/Grado guy for some reference.

As I have had these guys for ~24 hours now, it is possible that the sound quality may change during burn in, i have noted the following:

Bass is pronounced, especially the midbass. On bass heavy tracks you can hear it extend below 80 Hz without much effort. The bass does bleed a little bit into the midrange. Bass is a bit tubby sounding. The boost is annoying on acoustic guitar music as you can hear hand noise, string percussion etc.

Mids are thick and a bit blocky, no real grain to the sound. The bass bleed into the midrange may be to blame. Overall the mid are typical of a 'recorded' rather than a 'live' sound... ie. NOT like grados or beyers, more like sennheisers.

Highs pretty much suck and I think only people that are super sensitive to highs will not want to EQ these. I think there may be a bit of a Sennheiser notch to the lower treble frequencies as well. I find that the sound quality increases drastically when adding some (or alot of) extra treble. There does seem to be a little bit of 'wobble' between the L and R channels when the treble is boosted, but it is subtle. Boosting the treble also clips a bit of the highs, but I prefer this over pressing the treble frequencies so far down that i feel like i am listening through earmuffs.

Upon increasing the treble, I am happy to say that a significant amount of detail in the music is revealed, and a bit of the midrange thickness is thinned to a more enjoyable listening experience (IMO).

Soundstage is good as noted by other authors, this helps the separation and thin the overall thick sound of these headphones. Dyanmics are ok, not too bad for these guys. All in all they are pretty good, but still slaughtered by my Brainwavz M1 and Grado SR60 (all i can compare to at this point).

No real isolation, but better than the previous model. Still have no idea how the buttons work on the mic.

For comparison, i think they kind of sound like beats solos, and are quite similar to the MEelctronics M9.

Picked up a pair today. I like their sound, but I found them to be too uncomfortable. I guess I have relatively small um, ear places, and the body of the Earpods is too long to fit in it comfortably. They're getting returned.

My earpods came with my iPhone 5 and I can definitely say they do sound good. Do they sound really good? That's subjective, but I personally wouldn't go that far. They are a vast improvement over the old earbuds that came with the old iPhones.

The sound is actually quite pleasing and seems to be pretty balanced. Nothing jumps out as being wrong, the earpods are quite competent in all areas. The highs and mids sound nice and the bass, while being on the lighter side sounds pretty good.

My main issue with these is the fit. They are just... Weird. They just sit in my ears. There is no seal, so isolation is non-existent. Maybe that's why they feel weird to me. I'm not normally a fan of earbuds. I like IEMs.

However, for a pair of earphones that came with my phone, I am surprisingly pleased.Edited by draven5494 - 9/23/12 at 4:03pm

My main issue with these is the fit. They are just... Weird. They just sit in my ears. There is no seal, so isolation is non-existent. Maybe that's why they feel word to me. I'm not normally a fan of earbuds. I like IEMs.
However, for a pair of earphones that came with my phone, I am surprisingly pleased.

That's how I felt about the bose earbuds. But after I got used to the fit they were actually quite awesome. I kind of like it when earbuds don't seal to isolate the sound, to me it makes the sound more balanced and I don't feel as cut off from the rest of the world (kind of a good thing when using public transportation).

I wonder how comfortable they are. They look pretty rigid, like they won't flex to take pressure off of the ear. The originals (and all others of that style) really hurt after a while of use.

I'm surprised, really. I couldn't wear the old ones for more than five minutes at a time, because they chafed and were painful to keep in (not that I would anyway, because of their rather terrible sound). I've tried wearing the new ones for hours at a time, and have never once felt the need to take them off. Where the old ones had a rubber ring that would chafe, the new ones are completely smooth, so won't give you any such issues - so it's more down to whether the new shape fits your ear or not.

Definitely very impressed with these earphones.. I actually prefer them over my TF10 currently, if i'm not in a noisy environment that is... There are some instances where the treble's a tad too much for my ears. But otherwise, its very enjoyable, and at $30 hard to beat. Between going IEM and making it painful for alot of people, I think Apple made a good decision to stick with this design that really just fits in nicely and doesn't strain the ear when worn.

And I'm getting worried... cos I haven't been listening to my Ed8 since I got these babies with my iP5 lol~

Yeah but owning a CrApple product, let alone going out in public visibly advertising the fact, well that's an insurmountable handicap right there.

In all seriousness though, out of curiosity how well do these things isolate you from outside world noise and vice-versa? Nothing more enraging than some bloke or girl on the train or bus blasting out the latest duff duff rubbish at top volume for all to share....